BEACH huts were destroyed and the promenade was flooded as storms wreaked havoc on Hayling Island.

Hayling Island suffered worse damage than Portsea Island as it is offered reduced protection from the Isle of Wight and large waves called Atlantic Swells hurtle in from the ocean.

Dee Parham, who lives at Sandy Point, which missed out on any major flooding, said: ‘Southwood Road yesterday was under a foot of water.

‘At 3am it flooded again.

‘The water goes as far as the Inn on the Beach back up to Creek Road.

Meath Close in Hayling Island

‘With the direction of the tide, it’s washed away all the beach.

‘If the beach had been there it would have stopped the sea coming over, but there was nothing to hold it back.

‘The defences have taken a real battering.

‘One of the walls at Creek Road gave way and the promenade was full of shingle and water.’

Havant Borough Council, as part of the Eastern Solent Coastal Partnership, regularly replenishes the shingle on the beach to create a wall against the sea, but successive storms appear to have washed away some of the defences.

The Inn on The Beach, which sits just yards from the sea, was flooded yesterday and again in the early hours today with up to 10 inches of water on the ground floor.

The shingle that normally protects the pub was washed away by the sea, leaving the inn surrounded by 30m of water.

Owner Ian Murray told The News: ‘It was pretty bad - the worst we have seen in the five years since refurbishing it.

‘It flooded the whole downstairs of the pub, right through the champagne bar, the cellars and kitchens.

‘But we are open again today.

‘We got it cleared but we flooded again at 4am.’

Luckily, the pub is well-prepared, although this is the first time it has flooded since Mr Murray took over the venue.

Water-proof tiling and the electrics at ceiling level mean that the pub can re-open within three hours of a flood.

But the beach huts near the inn have not fared so well.

Mr Murray said: ‘We have lost a few beach huts.

‘There are in pieces over the car park. There’s another missing its roof. It just trashed the place.’

Mr Murray was hopeful that the wind and waves would not be as ferocious today.

The winds were so strong yesterday that dogwalkers were seen lying down on the beach as they were unable to walk.

Meanwhile, the area most vulnerable to flooding, the eastern tip of the Eastoke peninsula, has held up well to the storms.

A £5.1m scheme led by Havant Borough Council was completed recently and saw new rock defences put in on the beach.

Resident Peter Crane, 73, who lives next to the beach in Southwood Road, Eastoke, said: ‘In the worst rain and wind we have had, the new defences were there.

‘As far as I can tell it held up very well and it was a good thing it was there.

‘If it had not been there, we would have seen water coming into gardens.’

But Creek Road has remained impassable as it was under a foot of water.

Eastoke resident Tim Speller said: ‘There was water all over the place.

‘The high tide was up again at 3am and I went out at about 9pm last night, and there were people still filling sandbags.

‘There was a digger and council workers there and everyone was doing all they could.

‘I went out to shovel some shingle.

‘I spoke to one guy who had a couple of feet through his mother’s house just off the corner of Creek Road.’

Matt Hosey, assistant coastal defence partnership manager at Havant Borough Council, said: ‘The area of the new defences at Eastoke Point performed well with no problems reported. One of our engineers walked that section during the peak of the storm on the 6th January and the promenade was still dry at that time.

‘This was a significant storm event and flooding elsewhere in Eastoke has occurred - so far only one property has reported internal flooding, but it could be more. ‘The reason for this flooding is the persistent nature of recent storms and the associated swell waves which has resulted in over-topping.

‘Overall the new defences have fared well and have prevented more widespread flooding in the Eastoke area.’

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Hayling Islander provides news, events and sport features from the Hayling area. For the best up to date information relating to Hayling and the surrounding areas visit us at Hayling Islander regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Hayling Islander requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.